Editorials: Where I rant to the wall about politics. And sometimes the wall rants back.

Civil rights vs. showboat killers

Jerry Stratton, March 14, 2018

“The above paragraph is not the formal policy of… much of the mainstream media, but it amounts to the de facto policy.”—Dave Kopel

Most of the gun laws continually recycled after a mass shooting require the insane belief that criminals would suddenly start obeying this law, even though they’re willing to commit mass murder. They make no sense. If anything, such laws would increase the numbers of mass murders by creating more areas where only criminals are allowed to carry firearms. Such laws would tear at the self-defense rights of the law-abiding, and do nothing to protect them.

Even the people who propose these gun bans eventually admit, if you press them, that their proposals wouldn’t have stopped the mass murder they’re using as justification.

But what if there were a civil right we could infringe on that would stop such mass murderers? What if there were a law we could force the law-abiding to follow that would mean no more Parklands?

It does exist. Psychologists and commentators across the political spectrum recognize that these particular kinds of mass murders are done because the killer wants recognition. They know they’re going to get media attention, and lots of it, if they (a) use a gun, and (b) kill lots of people.

That’s why the vast majority of these killings take place in places where only criminals are allowed to carry firearms, even though such places are a tiny minority of places where people gather in the United States. Because the killers don’t want to be stopped before they kill enough people to make the news, and they know that if they’re stopped because one of their potential victims has a self-defense weapon, they either won’t make the news or their fame will be brief.

Columbine was meant to be spectacular, and it has beckoned mass shooters ever since as an example, a template, and a challenge. They study it, and they try to top it in terms of either body count or showmanship. From suicidal ideation grows the delusion of grandeur; from the desire to kill yourself grows the desire to kill as many people as possible, with immortality on the line.

The latest killer, in Parkland, literally looked at previous killings, saw the attention they received, and said “I can do better.” He knew exactly how the media worked, and he planned his murders to play to what the media wants1. Nor was he alone among mass killers in doing so.

Narcissism has been demonstrated in the motivations and statements made by certain mass shooters since the 1990s. In 2007, a man who shot nine people in an Omaha, Nebraska, mall before killing himself left a suicide note that stated, “Just think tho [sic] I’m gonna be famous” (Kluger 2007; Nichols 2007). A similar message was communicated by the Columbine offenders, who stated on a preshooting video, “Isn’t it fun to get the respect we’re going to deserve?”

The Orlando killer and the Virginia Tech killer literally paused their killing to check their media coverage (Orlando) or send out a press release (Virginia).

These killers are fully aware of the attention they’re going to get and how to increase it.

The Oregon shooter, for example, had written of another: “A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone.#…#Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

If there were a law that:

forbade news organizations from mentioning the killer’s name2 and from ever showing photographs of the killer;3

forbade comparing the murder with other murders and televising body counts;4

forbade mentioning the specific weapon or how it was constructed;

forbade televising or printing any final messages or video diaries for at least a year;

limited the length of other coverage to perhaps one column inch or two minutes per day, with nothing ever on the front page of newspapers or web sites;

and forbade search engines from linking to pages that violate these rules,

these showboat killings would quickly dry up.

By not using pictures of mass killers or their names, the media could deprive future would-be killers from seeking the same fame, cut down on the copycat or contagion effect, and reduce "competition" among killers to maximize the death toll, proponents say. In doing so, that could reduce mass killings. (WBUR)

I am not saying that this law would be the right thing to do. I do not believe it would be. Part of the reason I waited on posting this is in the hope that the do anything, even if it makes things worse frenzy has died down. I don’t want anyone thinking in the heat of a crime that infringing on civil rights in this way is a good idea.

My preference is to fight terror with freedom—get rid of areas where only criminals are allowed to carry firearms and allow everyone else, including teachers, to defend themselves.5 If these kinds of killers know they’ll be stopped before they become a mass murderer, after all, they won’t try to commit that kind of crime in the first place. But there is no question that infringing on first amendment freedoms in such as way as to take away a potential showboat killer’s chance at fame would stop these crimes, whereas infringing on second amendment freedoms would not. The latter requires the oxymoron that criminals follow the law; the former requires only that the news media follow the law. It wouldn’t even require competent or honest law enforcement, which appears to be a necessity for any effective solution.

If the goal behind taking people’s rights away were to stop these killings, gun controllers wouldn’t be gun controllers. They’d be media controllers. That they aren’t tells us that they care less about stopping the criminals doing the killing than they do about disarming the people doing the dying.

Some have suggested that we should have a national conversation in which the media will voluntarily strip themselves of their rights, and no law is necessary; I doubt that will ever work. But the difference between these two approaches is critical. One makes life safer for killers by disarming their victims. The other makes a specific kind of killer no longer want to kill.

As technology progresses, and the ease of wielding deadly power increases with it, it is critical that we find ways to ensure that those who would have killed no longer want to, because it is technologically impossible to keep them from acquiring not just guns, which have been easy for criminals to mass produce for decades, but from even more deadly weapons, which will be just as easy to make, and even mass produce, tomorrow, or next year, or next decade.

So while I am against muzzling freedom of speech, this national conversation, should it happen, is a step in the right direction because it directly addresses motivations. That is rapidly becoming the only way we can stop these murders, and worse, from happening.

Why did the Sutherland Springs killer, for example, try to acquire a Texas license to carry? LTCs in Texas don’t have anything to do with rifles. Odds are he was trying to play the press. He knew that if he had an LTC, even if he didn’t use it, his media coverage would have exponentially increased. They would never have stopped talking about him.

I still can’t get the coach out of my mind who gave his life shielding students from the attack. He was a gun owner, but he was forbidden from defending himself. Like Suzanna Gratia Hupp before Texas liberalized their carry laws, he was required to forego the ability to defend himself, which resulted in more people dying. Anyone with that kind of bravery and selflessness is someone I, personally, trust to defend themselves and their charges on school grounds.

planning

“Osborn wrote prior to the Sept. 28, 2016 shooting a reference to Sandy Hook killer, Adam Lanza, and noted that he wanted to kill ‘Atleast 40.’… Additionally, he said that the elementary school would ‘be like shooting fish in a barrel’ because there would be no armed security there.” (Memeorandum thread)
(Hat tip to Stephen Green at
Instapundit)

“University of Alabama criminologist Adam Lankford said that fame—or infamy—has emerged as a common thread in mass shootings since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold predicted on videotapes left behind that their armed rampage at Columbine High School would be one for the history books.”

“According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, ‘gun free zones’ (areas where guns are prohibited) have been the target of more than 98% of all mass shootings. This staggering number is why such designated areas are often referred to as ‘soft targets,’ meaning unprotected and vulnerable.”

“Columbine was meant to be spectacular, and it has beckoned mass shooters ever since as an example, a template, and a challenge. They study it, and they try to top it in terms of either body count or showmanship. From suicidal ideation grows the delusion of grandeur; from the desire to kill yourself grows the desire to kill as many people as possible, with immortality on the line.”

“Several past studies have found that media reports of suicides and homicides appear to subsequently increase the incidence of similar events in the community, apparently due to the coverage planting the seeds of ideation in at-risk individuals to commit similar acts.”

“Careful study of individual cases of mass murder frequently reveals that the offender felt compelled to leave some type of final message (Hempel et al. 1999; Knoll 2010). These messages may be written, videotaped, or posted on the Internet or social media networks (Aitken et al. 2008). The communications often have great meaning to the perpetrators, who realize it will be the only ‘living’ testament to their motivations and inner struggle (Knoll 2010).”

punditry

“His real-time search is a striking data point in what has become a pattern in mass shootings: Killers deeply attuned to their media coverage and in some cases engineering it… ‘All these killers want the publicity,’ he said. ‘They want to go down in infamy. Achieving the highest body count is one way to do that.’”

“…they are explicitly seeking fame, and the media is helping them to achieve this end. The realization that this route to fame ‘works’ can, in turn, produce more lethal events and foster one-upmanship among perpetrators.”

“Six simple steps every media outlet could follow to prevent copycat mass murders. This footage was aired after an incident in Germany in 2009. The speaker is Dr. Park Deitz, Forensic Psychologist of the Threat Assessment Group.”

“The way the media cover an event influences whether there will be repetitions. For example, if a fan runs onto the field during a baseball game, the broadcast cameras usually avoid showing pictures of the fan. The TV producers know that the fan on the field is seeking attention, and that, presumably, getting his picture on television will reward him. Moreover, broadcasting the man’s antics would encourage copycats.”

“By not using pictures of mass killers or their names, the media could deprive future would-be killers from seeking the same fame, cut down on the copycat or contagion effect, and reduce ‘competition’ among killers to maximize the death toll, proponents say. In doing so, that could reduce mass killings.”

Public Citizen is outraged that the Supreme Court sides with free speech. Their version of democracy, with a capital D, is government control over every aspect of a candidate’s campaign (government funding) and the candidate’s supporters (subjecting supporter advertisements to FEC whims).

Whenever there’s a tragedy, there is a small cadre of people who frantically push solutions that never worked in the past and wouldn’t have stopped the current tragedy. They’re in a hurry to act before the facts come out that would let us craft a real response. Real prevention means solving real problems. That means waiting for the facts.

If you have a Democrat in the house, you are eight hundred times more likely to die from statistical misrepresentation. Forty-three times more likely? Three times more likely? Would you believe smug mathematical innumeracy?

The problem with not reporting when people commit crimes, is that it makes everyone else blind to the potential threat. And the federalization of law enforcement also means no one cares about how blind they are.

Whenever there’s a tragedy, there is a small cadre of people who frantically push solutions that never worked in the past and wouldn’t have stopped the current tragedy. They’re in a hurry to act before the facts come out that would let us craft a real response. Real prevention means solving real problems. That means waiting for the facts.

Lost?

If I were a thief, and I had robbed some people’s houses, I would love nothing better than for the local community to organize a series of protests to call for a national law to make it more difficult for thieves to get away with thievery. The last thing in the world I’d want them to do, though, is to lock their doors. I wouldn’t want them to put their money in safes. I wouldn’t want them to protect themselves, I’d want them to have theoretical discussions and legislative discussions about things that could be done at some distance in time and place in order for me to continue my activity. — Scott Ott (Can We Just Get to the Heart of the Matter?)